Policing the New World Order: An Alternative Strategy

The United States responded decisively in the recent Persian Gulf crisis. The Bush Administration considered successful resolution of this crisis a precursor to the "new world order." Many questions now confront policy makers as America approaches the 21st Century. A pressing question is the following: Can America continue to serve as the world's policeman? America's challenge for the 1990s is to avoid the trappings of world policing that past superpowers have experienced throughout history "a la Pax Britannica." The United States can achieve this by, first, formulating its national security strategy to elevate the role of the United Nations as the world's policeman. Second, the United States' national security strategy should support the establishment of a United Nations standing peacemaking force. This force would provide the United Nations and international community a short-notice military employment capability during the early "warning period" of an impending crisis. Such a force would ultimately lower the United States' profile as the world's policeman in the emerging new world order. This essay addresses in five parts the establishment of a standing United Nations peacemaking force. First, it analyzes the circumstances and the international implications of America's involvement in the Persian Gulf War. Second, it discusses the resultant new world order and the United Nation's inability to enforce world order. Third, it highlights a deficiency in America's emerging defense strategy for the new world order. Fourth, it presents a proposal for a standing United Nations peacemaking force that the United States would support in the 1990s. And finally, it concludes with a view of America's future in policing the new world order.